Is it fair to assume the c-suite pay has probably skyrocketed, as in exponential growth? A reward for "lean manufacturing?"

As of this year we are now a wholly owned subsidiary of Georgia Pacific. Which of course is one of the largest organizations in - wait for it - Koch Industries. Even before that, our company's corporate bonuses alone were higher than the salaries of the twenty highest-paid hourly workers combined. One of the bonuses would have kept every single employee who was laid off in the year (even while we were making record profits) on board for the entire year. If these were even remotely isolated incidents, I'd go work somewhere else. But this is so common that I hear similar stories from virtually every single person I know who works.

I defended golden parachutes in another thread (or was it this one?) yesterday, but executive compensation is clearly out of control.

Those executives got bonuses. Fantastic. They can buy a Maserati and put the rest in the bank.But had that money gone to employees instead a greater portion would have been spent. An economy relies upon money being spent, and large concentrations of money simply means it sits around rather than goes towards purchasing items. The less money being spent, the more jobs that need to be cut. The more jobs that are cut, the less money being spent (and the cheaper items need to be.) To make items cheaper, and to deal with reduced demand, more jobs get cut. To reward labor inefficiencies being corrected, more bonuses are given to executives.